


Try

by Melle66



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:22:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24725203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melle66/pseuds/Melle66
Summary: “I was faking empathy, but some of those feelings are still familiar,” she countered, scrunching her nose when she heard the defensive tone of her own voice, “I’d like to say it was a one time occurrence, but… I’ve never been truly smart when it comes to relationships.”
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner/Emily Prentiss
Kudos: 36





	Try

**Author's Note:**

> First CM fic I ever write, so it's been an experience. I'm one of the many of us who've been watching the whole show all over again this past few months and I finally broke enough to sit down and write. I hope you enjoy! 
> 
> Please leave a comment or a kudo to let me know what you think :)

He was looking at her intently and fully aware of it, but Emily could see no trace of judgement in his eyes. Whatever was going on in his mind would be something for her to ponder alone in bed once he left… unless he chose to share. She wouldn’t ask him to spill it, though. Pulling yet another personal story from a mental box she had tried to bury in her head in front of her colleagues had been enough torture for a day. After years in the BAU she shouldn’t be surprised that their past as humans was sometimes necessary to break through an unsubs’ mind, but thinking about it had left Emily with a sour taste in her mouth.

Which, on a positive note, led Hotch to her place with a stash of cheap beer because “the occasion suited it”. Emily tried not to read too much into any implication. If she poked him, he’d end up saying something ridiculous like “with the right company nothing is ever cheap”, and she was sure she would believe him.

They had just closed a long case in which the unsub was a woman. It took them a while to find her motive since all the victims were low-risk white women whose only thing in common as far as the team could tell was being recently married with no children. Each of them was found intact aside from the choke marks around their necks and the lack of their wedding ring. By the time Garcia finally traced a small coffee shop all the victims had visited at least once, and JJ and Reid paid it a visit, the profile already pointed to a well-organized woman.

It wasn’t until, after hours trying to break down the 26 years old barista, Eileen, that Emily went into the interrogation room with a hunch. JJ and Reid had already played the antagonistic part, so Prentiss showed herself as a friend. Oh, yes. She was the one who could see some of herself in the younger woman, who seemed to instantly believe her. It saddened Emily, but made sense. At that age she had also been too eager to be loved and too easy to impress. So she told her the stories and how sometimes after another warm body pulled away from her to go home to his wife, she too wanted to find a way to get rid of them. She could relate to the pain of finding the perfect man way too late to have all of him to herself. It was unfair that they had to share simply because the timing was wrong, but what was even worse was being on the losing side when the time came for him to choose.

Eileen snapped with agreement, and Emily allowed her mind to go blank as the young woman rambled how she was giving these men the chance to find the right woman. They clearly made a mistake the first time, and divorce was complicated. They deserved to have a chance.

She was promptly arrested, a living victim was found and taken home safely, and Emily found herself in her apartment before anyone had the chance to question her… Until the man sitting with her at the table knocked on her door.

“How did you know?”

Emily turned to look at him with a deliberately long rolling of her eyes, then huffed.

“Seriously? You have to ask?”

“I thought you were faking empathy.”

“I  _ was _ faking empathy, but some of those feelings are still familiar,” she countered, scrunching her nose when she heard the defensive tone of her own voice, “I’d like to say it was a one time occurrence, but… I’ve never been truly smart when it comes to relationships.”

She had her arms crossed and leaning on the table. In front of her were two bottles of beer, one empty, the other one half-full. Hotch seemed to find his own drink too interesting to glance at her, or so would think anyone who didn’t know him better. Emily for her part, knew it was his way to give her space to speak her mind without fearing his expectations.

“I didn’t feel guilty while it happened, you know?” she added after a moment, knowing it was pointless to keep stalling the inevitable conversation. Hotch hadn’t come to drink a beer in silence with her in her dining room and then leave just as quietly. Not that Emily would ever complain if he chose to do just that. Tilting her head to the side with a half-hearted roll of her eyes, she added “But then I grew up and…”

“Felt groomed?”

Aaron could have smacked himself for interrupting her, but Emily only looked at him with a defeated expression before leaning back on the chair and reaching her arm out to grab her beer. When her fingers could barely graze its tip, Hotch gently pushed it within her reach, earning a small smile of appreciation from the brunette. She cleared her throat before taking a sip.

“You have to understand,” she started, hugging her beer against her stomach, “I was everywhere when I was young, terribly neglected… have I said ‘young’ already? It’s not that it wasn’t hard to believe I’d get such a man’s devotion, you know?”

Emily made a ticking sound with her tongue before smiling bitterly. If Aaron had to describe the look in her eyes as she kept them glued to the bottle, he would say she seemed to be longing for something. When she spoke again, her tone was steady, but barely a whisper.

“It was the exact opposite. It’s never been easy for me to believe I have a man’s uncontested affection.”

She lifted her eyes then and met his as if expecting him to say something. The problem was he didn’t have anything to say that wouldn’t completely shift the tone of their conversation. Their off-work relationship seemed to be a perennial rollercoaster, pulling them close at times only for one of them to jump out when they felt their barriers threatened. Not to mention she was unquestionably his subordinate, and any unwanted move he made on her during this conversation could turn him into yet another predatory man in Emily Prentiss’ life.

“It’s alright, Hotch, I know you’re not a liar,” she said, bringing him out of his head to find her leaning towards him on her chair with an amused smile on her lips, “You don’t need to start with me.”

“I’m not sure lying would be worse…” he let it come out as a mumble, as if it had been a slip of his mouth and not a calculated move. It paid off, since Emily’s eyes widened and a soft hum reverberated in her throat. Aaron tried not to linger on the sound. That had become his recurrent problem, he found himself lingering on thoughts about Emily that should be fleeting.

“But no, I didn’t feel  _ groomed _ ,” talking to Aaron Hotchner meant being opened raw one second, then building a shield in another. Maybe one day both of them would be willing to be vulnerable, but until then they’d keep on dancing. So she sighed, shrugged a shoulder and smiled, “I was convinced that if my happiness could be taken from me by my family, then I could take it from someone else and it was fair play.”

“Then it turns addictive. Have you heard of that?” Hotch made a sound of agreement at the throat which had Emily nodding while taking a sip of her beer, “Once I was slightly over the heartbreak, I realized I already knew how to get them. It’s funny, I never really acknowledge I was seducing them. At least that’s not how I thought about it. I never allowed myself to linger on the fact that somewhere a woman was waiting for her man to get home.”

Her mouth kept going without Emily being able to reign over it, as if the thoughts had finally grown tired of being kept inside and demanded to be materialized. Still, Aaron’s eyes were soft on her and it made her want to grab him by the shirt and shake him until he gave her a reaction. He didn’t have to be so understanding. After all, he was the always proper, always honest, exemplary man. Why was he so kind to someone who had been the exact opposite?

“This is where my feelings and Eileen Davies’ differ.” Her tone was serious now, and her eyes were fixed on Aaron, as if she needed to make sure he was listening to every word she said. “I did think it was unfair when I ended up alone at night, but not because I wanted any of them to stay. I just… I wanted to have it all, but…”

Aaron looked back at her for a moment, then raised his index finger to ask for a second. He stood up and disappeared into Emily’s kitchen, which made her smile. In what exact moment had he grown so comfortable at her home? When he came back into view, he was holding a new bottle for himself on one hand, and a carton box he had also brought, tied with a simple ribbon. Emily’s right brow quirked up with curiosity as he handed her the box before sitting down. 

“Drove by that coffee shop Garcia keeps talking about,” he explained with a light shrug, but a side smile betrayed his features when Emily gasped at the sight of the brownies inside the box. 

“Aaron Hotchner, you certainly know how to surprise a woman!”

“I know how to surprise  _ you _ ,” he corrected while reaching a hand out to grab a piece, but she playfully slapped his hand away, biting on her lower lip to hold a smile. When his expression morphed into fake outrage, she failed to hold back her laughter, but still pushed the box towards him.

“You know, Hotch? I think you were the first man who made me want to  _ truly _ have it all,” she said after a moment in silence, biting on a brownie and staring at it as if she was making casual conversation.

Her heart was finally naked in front of him and he was still as unreadable as it had been her first time in his office. No, scratch that. That day he had been visibly puzzled, then bothered. She knew her way into any man’s bed, of that she was sure, but when it was about catching the always composed Aaron Hotchner by surprise, she was clueless. She didn’t want him the easy way.

With a long, tired sigh, she leaned back on the chair and looked at him through half-lidded eyes. There was nothing sensual about her expression or posture, but Hotch still wished he was finally brave enough to pull her into his arms and hold her close for heaven knows how long. Maybe it was how little she demanded of him, how she not only seemed to not expect a thing from him and instead openly showed her certainty of his distance. It made him want to slap himself because he knew she was right to be so sure. They worked together. His life was complicated. Hers was as well. He could go on with an endless list of reasons why he shouldn’t, carefully crafted by himself in an attempt to keep his feelings at bay. It wasn’t as efficient as he would like.

“Mmm, I love it when you space out,” he turned to find her smiling at him, the bottle of beer barely grazing her lips, a few chocolate crumbs stuck stubbornly by the corner of her mout. Why did she have to make everything look so tempting? Without moving the bottle away, she added, “You make that face with the concentrated furrowed brows, but your lips part slightly like a child trying to understand why it’s only fine to have dessert  _ after _ your meal.”

“Are all your metaphors food-related?” asked Aaron, leaning towards her to slowly take the beer from her hands, making sure to ghost her skin with his. He couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his lips when he noticed the way she wet her lips as he took a long sip from her drink. Emboldened by his actions, Emily pulled her chair next to his so that she could lean on his armrest. Then she shrugged, her eyes playfully innocent through her lashes.

“I do have a different repertoire, but do you want me to make you blush?”

If she expected him to back down -which she did- she was wrong, since he lowered his face until his lips were leveled with hers, her eyes instantly focused on them.

“I want to see you try.”

Emily could feel her heartbeat wildly drumming against her ribcage, almost painfully. She couldn’t remember the last time she had sobered up in a second, or ever wanting to give in as much as she needed to run away. It would take nothing to press her lips against his. Not this time when she  _ knew _ he would kiss her back. It should be a split-second decision and yet she was frozen, weighing her options, trying to silence her doubts and fears, or give into them.

It was an ironic change. Before the BAU, she would have taken what she wanted, even if it was for one night only, and dealt with the consequences in the morning. After enough time, she didn’t even waste a second wondering who she might be hurting with her actions, who might be waiting for a man that stood between her legs. Now, though… Now she not only wanted Hotch to be in their place for a night. She wanted to wake up knowing if he wasn’t next to her in bed, then she’d find him in the kitchen getting breakfast ready. To hold his hand on the jet during a flight home after a long case. Emily longed to be the person he called when he was having trouble raising Jack, even if she knew squat about being a parent. She had spent years striving to have everyone and nothing, but now she wanted everything from him.

His hands were on both sides of her face before she could make a decision and she closed her eyes, bracing herself for a moment she had dreamed of for way too long. It didn’t come, though. At least not immediately. Instead, she found herself holding her breath as his nose gently brushed all over her forehead, down the bridge of her own. His lips followed, pressing soft kisses over her closed eyes, followed by the tip of his tongue barely touching the corner of her mouth, tasting the remains of her dessert. Then one of his hands moved to the back of her head and slowly pulled on her hair tie, running his fingers through her dark locks, feeling her face trembling against his.

“Aaron…” she mumbled as her hands instinctively reached for his arms. Whether it was to push him away or pull him close, Emily wasn’t sure. He slid his hand from her hair down her back, detouring to encircle her waist and pull her as close as the armrests allowed. Emily sighed when his other hand left her cheek and his fingers barely grazed her chin, then her neck until he firmly pressed his hand against her collarbone. Defeated, Emily let her face rest on his shoulder. Her hands moved from his arms to his chest, and a small smile crossed her face when she felt his heart beating as fast as hers.

“I want it all, Aaron.”

He could barely hear her whisper, but he was sure he got the words right. Surprising even himself, he maneuvered Emily’s body, so she was sitting on his lap and nested against his chest. He couldn’t help but marvel at how natural it felt when she buried her face in the crook of his neck and let out a contented sigh. He should have held her sooner. Emily felt safe in his arms, he could tell, and he would do anything in his power to show her she was right to.

“We can build it all, Em,” he spoke into her ear, rubbing her back in slow motions with one hand. She took his free one and hugged it against her breasts, clinging to him.

“I want to believe you,” she admitted, shifting in his arms to sit up and look into his eyes, “I really do, but I’m not sure I know how…”

“That’s why we’ll do it together, hmm?”

Emily turned her face away from him for a moment, grateful that he didn’t immediately try to meet her eyes and instead gave her time to think. It was undeniable that he understood her in a way nobody else did. She was old enough to realize her connection with Hotch was the treasure people wrote songs about. Her heart filled with warmth when she felt his forehead rest against her shoulder as he patiently waited for her, and Emily took a hand to his hair, gently scratching his scalp as they sat in silence. His arms wrapped tightly around her waist as she softly pulled his hair back to tilt his head up.

Aaron kept his face neutral as their eyes met, bracing himself for whatever answer she was going to give him. With one hand still grabbing his hair, she decidedly pressed her lips on his, pulling away before he could even react.

“I expect breakfast in bed for the rest of our lives,” she said with pursed lips that attempted to hide a smile unsuccessfully. When Aaron smiled in return with his dimples making an appearance, she laughed openly and tentatively slid her arms around his neck.

“I’m positive we’ll find a common ground, Agent Prentiss.”

They had a long conversation ahead of them, with rules and boundaries to set, agreements to make, truths to share. There would be time, though. As he kissed her again, the idea of having it all didn’t seem distant anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me anywhere as unglobitoazul.


End file.
